Udhampur rolls out District Accessibility Plan for General Elections 2019

UDHAMPUR, MARCH 14: Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Sanjeev Verma, today took stock of the arrangements being made in the Udhampur district for the Persons with Disabilities (PwD) voters under its District Accessibility Plan which was earlier rolled out here today.

The District Accessibility Plan has been prepared to facilitate the PwD voters in the upcoming General Elections under the theme of ‘Accessible Elections’.

The Divisional Commissioner while appreciating the efforts of the district administration emphasized on sensitization of the field level functionaries across the line departments to identify and reflect the polling station wise number of PwD voters along with the special requirements thereof for facilitating these voters in exercising their right to franchise.

District Election Officer Dr. Piyush Singla informed that similar awareness generation-cum-training programmes will be held at all the tehsil headquarters and a team of ‘Divyang Doots’ as envisaged under the District Disability Plan will shortly be mobilized to work as a single point contact between the PwD voters and district administration.

Earlier, multiple awareness camps were held wherein the field functionaries from the line departments including Anganwadi workers, village level workers, Numberdars, Chowkidars among others were informed about the District Accessibility Plan and as such were directed to identify, flag such voters and provide them suitable facilities as prescribed under the Plan in a time-bound manner.

The participants were also provided with ‘hands on’ training on the Voter Helpline App and PwD Electoral Extension Services App which can be downloaded from Google Play Store. It was informed that using these mobile applications the voters can avail various services on a click of a button including online application for new voters, transfer/ shifting of existing voters among constituencies, deletion and correction.

It was also impressed upon the participants that in addition to raising awareness among the end-user of these mobile applications, the voters should also be urged to get themselves marked as PwD and raise requests through the digital platform for special assistance to be provided to them at the respective polling stations on the poll day.

Later, Divisional Commissioner also visited various polling stations at Tikri, Mand, Krimchi and Majalata and issued directions to ensure necessary arrangements for smooth conduct of the General Elections 2019.

Mark Twain once famously quipped, ‘If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.’ And it holds true even today, infact it is more pronounced in this day and age of social media, reflected in the way our main stream media is reporting these days . The truth gets drowned in the loud voices of political party representatives and generously paid participants, each one of them pushing his own agenda.